ECTOGRAM – new album – Tall Things Falling

Once you have played with notably unhinged Krautrock heroes Faust and entitled a track Opal Soft Green Kumquat Of The Sun, then you know no fear. Ectogram have done both these things, and done them while looking like raddled hippies who live in sheds, and – defying all received logic – remain rather fantastic.

That their third full-length is only a shade under 70 minutes, arrives in possibly the worst sleeve Honk has ever seen, and boasts surely-piss-taking titles once more (The Horse Behind The Flower; My Owl) shouldn’t deter you too much. Tall Things Falling retains some of the loopy pastorality of 2000’s All Behind The Witchtower, but turns up the fuzz to leave Ectogram resembling a Welsh Sonic Youth more than anything. To Dream Of Acorns owes more than a little to the Youth’s Teenage Riot, but is has enough individual momentum to delight on its own terms. Even when Ectogram blast into deep space (the ten-minute Glove Soup), it always feels like songwriting – they never scrabble around in pools of lysergic indulgence, always reigning this noise in tight to their chests. It’s one of the most individual, truly psychedelic records you’ll hear for a long time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t dig it too. www.ankst.co.uk